By his own account, "entertaining and thought-provoking" were his goals for the book, and he has succeeded very admirably. I can recommend the book wholeheartedly, even as I respectfully disagree with some of his conclusions. "

I really liked this write up. You can read the author's comments here:

I agree with Charles Smith, and not with Dmitri. Thanks for that write up. Orlov's argument paints the US citizen as weak and incabable of surviving an economic collapse. I think that is far from the reality.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mish Shedlock Japan Deflation vs. US Deflation. We've got a whole pile of debt to work through and no way to pay it off.

The upside for America is that housing prices are falling quite rapidly. I expect much worse downside to the economy for the next few years as we work through the debt burden (and likely just have a huge slew of people, banks, businesses, and maybe local or state governments default). After that, the dollar will be worth another 25-50% less than now, we will have taken out the trash, and we can start to rebuild.

Maybe it doesn't turn out like that, but if I'm a middle class American, I'm building up my rainy day fund and preparing for some rough sledding.